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S. 1515, United States Secret Service Retirement Act of 2012

As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on May 16, 2012

S. 1515 would permit certain current employees of the U.S. Secret Service hired between January 1, 1984, and December 31, 1986, to move from the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) to the District of Columbia Police and Firefighter Retirement and Disability System (D.C. system). The bill would require that agents who elect to change systems pay for the additional retirement benefits provided under the D.C. system over the next 11 years (referred to in the bill as transition costs). This bill also would require Secret Service agents who choose to be covered under the D.C. system to forfeit all contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) made on their behalf by the Secret Service or any other agencies.

Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending and revenues.

CBO estimates that enacting S. 1515 would, on net, generate an insignificant amount of budgetary savings over the 2013-2022 period. Increased direct spending resulting from the additional retirement benefits under the D.C. system would total $7 million over the 10-year period, but those costs would be offset by the payment in 2013 of transition costs by employees who switch retirement plans. Such employees would also convert from contributing to FERS (which would reduce revenues), to contributing to the D.C. system (which would increase offsetting receipts by a similar amount).

Because S. 1515 would require the District of Columbia to determine the cost for some members of the Secret Service to switch to the D.C. system, the bill would impose an intergovernmental mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). CBO estimates that the cost of the mandate would be minimal and would not exceed the threshold established in UMRA for intergovernmental mandates ($73 million in 2012, adjusted annually for inflation). This bill contains no new private-sector mandates are defined in UMRA.